Michael J. Rosen

Michael J. Rosen is President of ML Innovations, Inc., a fundraising and marketing consulting firm serving nonprofit organizations and the companies that assist them. An AFP Certified Master Trainer and winner of the prestigious AFP/Skystone Prize for Research, Michael is the author of the bestselling book "Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing."

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Posts tagged ‘charitable planning’

As we all work to promote planned giving, many in the nonprofit sector have questioned whether or not the very term “planned giving” can be replaced by something more effective.

Greg Warner, President at MarketSmart, started an interesting discussion a couple weeks ago on the Legacy/Estate/Gift Planning and Planned Giving Professionals Group on LinkedIn. Warner asked:

Since most donors are not familiar with the term ‘planned giving,’ what other terms or phrases should we use to market planned gifts?”

The question stimulated a lively discussion.

The nonprofit sector has grown tired of the term “planned giving,” thinks of it as inelegant, or recognizes that very few people understand what the term means. As happens periodically, the nonprofit sector is searching for a new, more comfortable descriptive label. And, there is some validity to the concerns the sector has about the term.

The Stelter Company conducted a survey that I cite in my book, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing, that found only 37 percent of Americans over the age of 30 have a familiarity with the term “planned giving.” We have no way of knowing what percentage of those claiming familiarity really, in fact, know what the term means.

Those who responded to Warner’s question suggested several alternatives to “planned giving.” However, none of the suggested replacement terms represents a perfect solution. So, what should the nonprofit sector do? Should we keep or dump the term “planned giving”?

My friend Viken Mikaelian, Founder of PlannedGiving.Com, has done a comparison of the terms “planned giving” and “gift planning.” He discovered that, on Google, the words “gift planning” are out-searched 100-to-1 by the words “planned giving.” In a search of Google’s digital library of over 13 million books, “planned giving” is far and away the more popular term when compared to “gift planning.”

Mikaelian concludes, “So if you believe in search engine optimization (SEO) for your planned giving website, ‘planned giving’ is a better choice.” You can read Mikaelian’s full report here.

I decided to conduct my own test. I Googled the various terms suggested by those who responded to Warner’s question. I wanted to see how many results would be found for each term. Here’s what I discovered: